Apple's latest addition to its $5 billion campus is built into a hillside like a modern-day Hobbit hole
Getty/Anadolu
- Apple is showing off Apple Park Observatory, a new subterranean venue at its headquarters.
- The event space is designed with natural materials and built into a hillside of Apple Park.
- You can expect Apple to host visitors and press at the venue during its product launches and events.
Apple's newest campus building looks a bit like a futuristic reimagining of one of the Hobbit-hole homes from J.R.R. Tolkien's books.
But you won't find any hairy-foot hobbits inside — just Apple employees and maybe some tech journalists and YouTubers there to check out the company's latest gadgets.
Design website Dezeen published the first photos of Apple Park Observatory, the company's new subterranean venue that's built into the ground, earlier this week. The event space is nestled in the hillside of Apple Park, the company's $5 billion headquarters designed by Foster + Partners in Cupertino, California.
Apple Park Observatory is rooted in the meadows near the Steve Jobs Theater and marks the latest addition to the campus. Around 90 trees were removed and then replanted around the site where the space was constructed, Dezeen reported.
"When we built Apple Park, we wanted the entire campus to be seamlessly integrated into the landscape, and this building follows that same approach," Apple's global head of design for real estate and development, John De Maio, told Dezeen.
Designed with natural stone, terrazzo, and wood, Apple Park Observatory was made to complement the main circular ring building of the sprawling campus
The venue, along with the rest of the campus facilities, is fully powered by renewable energy.
When visitors to an Apple event step inside, they'll see a view of the sky through an oculus located at the entrance's ceiling.
Further, through a stone door, the main hall also has a "portal-like opening" onto a large terrace area that looks out to the main Apple Park building and greenery, Dezeen reported.
The new space isn't the first on the campus to feature a largely underground design — there's also a massive subterranean parking lot.